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Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston Want to Join 'Better Call Saul'

'Breaking Bad' star Paul also talks about Jesse's fate

When the Breaking Badspinoff Better Call Saulfinally starts production, Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston want to be on set. "Both Bryan and I want to be a part of that, if they'll have us," Paul says in a new cover story interview with Details.

Better Call Saul, which stars Bob Odenkirk as the shady criminal lawyer Saul Goodman, is set to start production later this year. Paul's excitement about the series should invigorate Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, who is co-creating Saul with writer-director Peter Gould; Gilligan has said he's eager to bring in Paul and Cranston for cameos, and he's even hoping to rope in Jonathan Banks, who played the mysterious Mike.

Elsewhere in the Details feature, Paul reflects on his early days as an actor and his triumphant rise to stardom as fan-favorite meth cook Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad. In one particularly revealing quote, the actor talks about sending an e-mail ("a plea for Jesse, a love letter") to Gilligan in an attempt to help shape the final trajectory of his character.

"I never give my two cents when it comes to Breaking Bad, because why would I?" Paul says. "I'm just the actor, and what they're doing is perfect, you know? But I just felt like I would always regret it if I didn't at least throw them a pitch on how I wanted Jesse to go out. So I gave a few different ideas of how I thought he would kill himself. I didn't want anybody else taking his life." However, he admits that "the letter was awful" and also "very morbid."

"I'm so happy they didn't listen," he says. "I'd rather Jesse just kind of ride off into the sunset like he did." While Jesse's climactic, tearful getaway drive didn't provide enough closure for some fans, Paul's optimistic view of the character's final scene echoes recent statements made by Gilligan, who wrote and directed the series finale, "Felina."

"My personal feeling is that he got away," Gilligan told GQ, though he admits it's not a realistic view."The most likely thing, as negative as this sounds, is that they're going to find this kid's fingerprints all over this lab and they're going to find him within a day or a week or a month. And he's still going to be on the hook for the murder of two federal agents."